Category: Links

NOCtools – A Mixed Bag of Tools and Utilities for NOC Engineers

NOCtools is a mixed bag of tools and utilities that are useful for NOC engineers. This project originally started out as a way to highlight and utilise our OSS_SNMP library (a PHP SNMP library for people who hate SNMP).

It since grew into a way to graphically present information on network topology that is normally difficult and cumbersome to do by logging into individual devices. Such information includes a discovered L2 topology by CDP, using this to present rapid-PVST port roles and so forth.

From the company blog:

Today, we are introducing NOCtools which uses this library to provide a number of useful tools including:

  • CDP Neighbours: for a given CDP enabled device, display its CDP neighbours with information and also a graph showing connected ports.
  • CDP L2 Topology: graph the layer 2 network topology based on a recursive crawl of CDP neighbours.
  • RSTP Topology & Port Roles: similar to CDP L2 Topology above but this takes a specific VLAN and identifies and graphs Per-VLAN Spanning Tree port roles.
  • Per-VLAN RSTP Port Roles: a tool that will display the per-VLAN Rapid STP port roles for a given VLAN (or for all VLANs) on a device.
  • Inter-Device VLAN Comparison: a tool that will compare VLANs available (and their respective names) across selected devices allowing you to ensure consistency as well as perform simple security audits.

Follow the links about for screen shots and more details. We are releasing this under a GNU GPL license in the hope that the wider networking community will benefit from them.

A PHP SNMP Library for People Who HATE SNMP, MIBs and OIDs!

I hate SNMP! But I have to use it on a daily basis with my company, Open Solutions.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an essential tool in the trade of network engineering but it’s also a serious PITA. Finding MIBs, OIBs, making them work, translating them, cross-vendor translations, etc, blah, blah. And then, when you do find what you need, you’ll have forgotten it months later when you need it again.

Anyway, while trying to create some automatic L2 topology graphing tools (via Cisco/Foundry Discovery Protocol for example) and also some per VLAN RSTP tools to show port states, I started writing this library. As I wrote, I realised it was actually very useful and present it here now in the hopes that the wider network engineering community will find it useful and also contribute back MIBs.

An example may best illustrate the library:

First, we need to instantiate an SNMP object with a hostname / IP address and a community string:

$ciscosw = new \OSS\SNMP( $ip, $community );

Assuming the above is a standard Cisco switch, let’s say we want to get an associate array of VLAN names indexed by the VLAN ids:

print_r( $ciscosw->useCisco_VTP()->vlanNames() );

This yields something like the following:

Array (
    [1] => default
    [2] => mgmt
    [100] => cust-widgets
    [1002] => fddi-default
    ...
)

It really is that easy.

See the GitHub project page: https://github.com/opensolutions/OSS_SNMP

What the Hell is INEX? An IXP?

In a few recent posts, I’ve mentioned INEX.

INEX is a neutral, industry-owned association, founded in 1996, that provides IP peering facilities for its members. INEX membership is open to all organisations that can benefit from peering their IP traffic and there are currently 57 members.

INEX can also be considered Ireland’s IP Peering Hub. INEX membership provides high-speed, reliable and resilient IP traffic exchange facilities for both Irish and International organisations, allowing them to route IP traffic efficiently thereby providing faster, more reliable and lower-latency internet access for their customers.

So what the hell is an IXP? Well, Euro-IX commissioned the following, the Internet Revealed: A file about IXPs, a couple of years ago which brilliantly explains IXPs.

World IPv6 Day with Irish Statistics

In case it passed you by, today was World IPv6 Day. In a nutshell: “Major Internet service providers (ISPs), home networking equipment manufacturers, and web companies around the world are coming together to permanently enable IPv6 for their products and services by 6 June 2012.” This includes top content providers such as Facebook (see under their hood), Google (read what they had to say), Yahoo! and Microsoft. In fact, you may not even have noticed but Google were advertising it front and centre on their search page:

Google Announcing World IPv6 Day on Their Search Page

Over at INEX, we were unable to pull out IPv6 traffic statistics on the exchange until recently and my colleague just got the first pass of that project complete this week in time for World IPv6 Day. Here’s how it looked over the hours leading up to and into World IPv6 Day:

Now, the peek of almost 40Mbps is, most assuredly, small compared to the overall peek of 24Gbps, but there is a very pronounced jump in IPv6 traffic which is certainly a good sign and a move in the right direction. The overall peering statistics at INEX are public and we’ll be breaking out IPv4 and IPv6 into separate graphs shortly also.

Why does IPv6 amount to < 0.2% of the traffic at the exchange? Well there are two main factors:

  • Until today, there has been very little mass or popular content available over IPv6. So, even if you were IPv6 enabled, there was very little for you access.
  • None of the large ISPs in Ireland are providing IPv6 connectivity to end users outside of certain closed test programs.

This is the classic chicken and egg problem: with no content available the ISPs were not motivated to provide IPv6 connectivity; and, conversely, with no IPv6 enabled eyeballs the content providers were not motivated to make their services available over IPv6.

While today was not necessarily a content provider only day, I’m unaware of any Irish ISPs that got involved. But, now that we have significant content available over IPv6, hopefully the ISPs will begin to ramp up their own programs. And – to be fair – it’s not all bad news with the ISPs in Ireland. Most have their core and edge networks IPv6 enabled, it’s the access layer that’s the issue (and it’s a really really big issue and a very difficult issue).

AMS-IX (the Amsterdam Internet Exchange) is in the top three IXPs in the world by traffic volume and they also make their IPv6 statistics public. As a second demonstration of traffic levels on World IPv6 Day, here is the week to date showing a huge differential for today:

If you’re not sure what all this is about, well then here are a few words from the creator of the Internet himself:

And if you’re keen to start experimenting with IPv6, first email and ask your ISP. They’ll say no, but do it anyway! Then head over to SixXS (and be sure to choose either HEAnet or Digiweb as your PoP as both are INEX members and as such you’ll have the lowest possible latency).

Top 15 UI Libraries on GitHub (with 1500+ watchers)

I was just reviewing an accessibility presentation where the author had an interesting slide on the top 15 UI libraries on GitHub with 1500+ watchers. Here they are with links and descriptions (my own comments in italics):

  1. Bootstrap, from Twitter - Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and Javascript for popular user interface components and interactions. A favourite of mine and I’ve used it on Open Solutions, ViMbAdmin, TallyStick, ePayroll and more.
  2. impress.js – It’s a presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions in modern browsers and inspired by the idea behind prezi.com. (GitHub page).
  3. chosen - Chosen is a library for making long, unwieldy select boxes more friendly. Another plugin we love and use in a number of projects.
  4. jQuery-File-Upload - File Upload widget with multiple file selection, drag&drop support, progress bars and preview images for jQuery.
  5. jquery-ui – jQuery UI provides abstractions for low-level interaction and animation, advanced effects and high-level, themeable widgets, built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library, that you can use to build highly interactive web applications. (GitHub page). Another favourite of ours and we use it along side Bootstrap with the jquery-ui Bootstrap theme.
  6. spin.js - An animated CSS3 loading spinner with VML fallback for IE.
  7. deck.js – Modern HTML presentations (GitHub page).
  8. Skeleton - A Beautiful Boilerplate for Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Development.
  9. Foundation - An easy to use, powerful, and flexible framework for building prototypes and production code on any kind of device.
  10. showoff - the best damn presentation software a developer could ever love (example).
  11. ajax-upload - A file upload script with progress-bar, drag-and-drop (GitHub page).
  12. isotope - An exquisite jQuery plugin for magical layouts.
  13. Timeline JS - Beautifully crafted timelines that are easy, and intuitive to use. This actually looks really cool and very pretty.
  14. etherpad-lite - An Etherpad based on node.js – Our goal is to make collaborative editing the standard on the web.
  15. ColorBox - A lightweight customizable lightbox plugin for jQuery.

 

As an honourable mention, if you use Bootstrap and it’s modal dialog, take a look at Bootbox which provides wrappers for JavaScript alert(), confirm() and other flexible dialogs.

Some thinks that jump out at me from the above is that frameworks are very popular and, similarly, prestation frameworks are also very popular. There must be a deep hatred of PowerPoint and Keynote among web developers! The other take away for me is how a very small project – such as chosen – can become hugely hugely popular.

Interesting Network Infrastructure Developments

I was recently asked for a few bullet points on some recent “interesting network infrastructure developments”. In the five minutes I had, I offered the following:

  • TRILL – Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links – a new layer 2 routing protocol which promises to replace STP. What’s really interesting about TRILL is that it does not need to be loop free; there are no blocking ports; and frames can take the shortest path. See http://www.ipjforum.org/?p=582 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRILL_(computing). 
  • Open Networking Foundation – https://www.opennetworking.org/ – “The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a non-profit consortium dedicated to the transformation of networking through the development and standardization of a unique architecture called Software-Defined Networking (SDN), which brings direct software programmability to networks worldwide. The mission of the Foundation is to commercialize and promote SDN and the underlying technologies as a disruptive approach to networking that will change how virtually every company with a network operates.” – members include Facebook, Google and Microsoft.
  • OpenFlow – http://www.openflow.org/ – “OpenFlow enables networks to evolve, by giving a remote controller the power to modify the behavior of network devices, through a well-defined “forwarding instruction set”. The growing OpenFlow ecosystem now includes routers, switches, virtual switches, and access points from a range of vendors.” – adopted by Googleand others. 
  • OpenCompute – slightly off networking but relevant – http://opencompute.org/ – “A small team of Facebook engineers spent the past two years tackling a big challenge: how to scale our computing infrastructure in the most efficient and economical way possible. … Everyone has full access to these specifications. We want you to tell us where we didn’t get it right and suggest how we could improve. And opening the technology means the community will make advances that we wouldn’t have discovered if we had kept it secret.”

Joseph Mallozzi :: Remembering Joel Goldsmith

Over in his blog, Joe Mallozzi wrote a fitting remembrance to Joel Goldsmith:

Finally, we come to Joel’s last piece for the Stargate franchise, that beautiful closing theme to the SGU finale, Gauntlet.  …  When we received the director’s cut, the sequence had included a gorgeous piece that I felt was nothing short of perfect.  I loved Joel’s work, knew what he was capable of but, I have to admit, I doubted even he could trump the music that accompanied the director’s cut.  But Joel wanted to try.  He did.  And succeeded.  If that original piece was nothing shot of perfect, then the closing piece Joel came up with was beyond perfection.

As a huge Stargate fan – (can you believe it’s three series, 17 seasons, 354 episodes) – it’s fair to say that Joel also provided the soundtrack to quite a chunk of my life! Here’s that closing sequence of the final episode of Stargate Universe (and the franchise) Joe was referencing (which was perfectly paired with the opening sequence of the first episode of Universe):

Engineers Ireland – IPv6 Presentation

This evening I will be presenting the following to Engineers Ireland on behalf of INEX.

 

Essential Windows Software for a Fresh Install

I get landed with new computers from time to time for colleagues, friends and family to install / set-up. Here is my list of essential Windows software for these.

The first thing I do is a fresh install of Windows to remove the crazy and ridiculous amount of bloatware that comes pre-installed and makes the system as slow as a wet week. Then after re-installing Windows and the necessary hardware drivers (Windows Update will get most of these automatically), I then:

ViMbAdmin 2.1 Released – POP3/IMAP Access Restrictions

We’ve just pushed a new release of ViMbAdmin – version 2.1. The main highlights are:

  • it’s now possible to restrict access to a mailbox via either IMAP, POP3 or both. See this page on the wiki for more information.
  • it’s our first release requiring a database migration. But it’s really really easy – see this page for those instructions.

As always, a live demo is available at: http://www.opensolutions.ie/vimbadmin/.